


The Promise of a Perfect Life

by flibbertygigget



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Cancer, HIV/AIDS, M/M, Marvin (Falsettos) Being an Asshole, Stabbing, Suicide, Time Loop, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-24
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-12-07 02:00:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18228395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flibbertygigget/pseuds/flibbertygigget
Summary: Marvin gets the opportunity to do it again... and again... and again...One perfect life. That's all he's asking for.





	1. Chapter 1

When he comes to, he's lying on a hard, sticky floor. Music and lights pound through his head and his eyelids, and he can smell the sweat and alcohol and sex of the club.

This isn't right.

He's supposed to be hanging from the bar in his closet, a study in irony. He's supposed to have gone into the nothingness of death or the doubtful afterlife. But this isn't nothingness, and he would have hoped that the afterlife would be something more peaceful than this.

"Hey! Hey, are you alright?" He opens his eyes.

Chocolate eyes. Perfectly styled hair. Clothes that look like they were made for a bedroom floor. And yet it still takes Marvin a moment to register what he's seeing, because this version of his lost lover is strong and healthy and vibrant and  _alive_.

"Whizzer?" he whispers. He can't believe it, but then Whizzer's face scrunches in a familiar expression of concern.

"Um, do I know you?" Marvin tries to sit up, but his head starts spinning and Whizzer has to grab his arm to keep him from falling over. "Woah, take it easy. You hit your head pretty bad there."

"You-" Marvin swallows. "You're supposed to be dead."

"Excuse me?"

"I watched you die. I held you in my arms-"

"I think you need to sober up," Whizzer says, trying to back away, but Marvin reaches out and grabs his sleeve. "What the hell, man?"

"I love you. We were lovers, and then you died and-"

"Look, I've never seen you before in my life."

"Whizzer, you can't die again. I wouldn't be able to take it. You can't sleep around this time, or else-" Whizzer tries to pull away, but Marvin's determined. "No. Stay. I have to warn you-"

"Let go of me! I know karate. I won't hesitate to-" Marvin lets go of Whizzer's arm like it's burned him. Whizzer looks scared - scared like a fight that's gotten way out of hand, scared like a hospital room.

"You really don't remember me," Marvin says. Whizzer spares him one more freaked-out glance.

"Fucking weirdo," he hears the love of his life mutter before turning and running away.

Marvin lets himself fall back to the floor. He can't believe this. For one shining minute Whizzer had been there, and now he's gone again. Gone and apparently a stranger.

"'Scuse me, sir, but you need to get up." The bouncer nudges him with his foot. Marvin looks around the club at all the happy, pretty boys that are dancing.

"Do you know that we're only a few years away from the end of all this?" he says, gesturing around him.

"Look, buddy, I don't make the rules." The bouncer cracks his knuckles. "I just enforce them."

"Please. You have to warn them. Something's coming, something infectious."

"Leave before I make you leave!" Since Marvin doesn't want to fight, not tonight, he gets up without another word and leaves the club as though in a trance.

What is this? A dream? The hallucination of a dying mind? A second chance? He doesn't know what the right answer is, but he knows that he can't throw this whatever-it-is away.

He  _has_ to find Whizzer.

Apartment. Whizzer's apartment, the one with the cigarette-stained wallpaper and rattling windows. It gives him a strange half-pain, half-pleasure to remember it. It was a death trap, a shithole, but it was also the site of so many firsts for them. Just thinking of it makes blood rush to Marvin's face and groin.

He finds and empty taxi and babbles the address. He bounces his leg, trying different approaches, different ways to get Whizzer to listen to him. There are no guarantees, but Marvin has to try. He can't bear the idea of Whizzer dying again.

He climbs the five flights of stairs in record time, though he is puffing a little when he finally reaches Whizzer's door. There's light streaming through the doorframe, so he knows that Whizzer beat him there.

Marvin takes a deep breath. This is it. This is his last chance. He knocks on the door, almost shaking from nerves.

"Oh, fuck no," Whizzer says when he sees that it's Marvin standing there. He tries to close the door, but Marvin sticks his foot in.

"Please," he says. His foot feels like it's about to be broken. "Please, I just want to talk. My name's Marvin, and I know that you're Whizzer Brown." Whizzer's pressure eases slightly, and no wonder. Marvin knows that his lover rarely gave out his last name. He uses the opportunity to slip further inside, pushing until Whizzer is forced to let Marvin in completely.

"What the hell do you want with me?" Whizzer says, backing towards the tiny kitchenette.

"Please, Whiz. I won't hurt you. I love you. I love you so much. I-" Marvin takes a deep breath. "I'm here to warn you."

"What, about the crazy guy breaking into my apartment? Sorry, but that's you, sweetheart."

"Whizzer, baby-" Marvin tries to go to him. Whizzer retreats further, pressing against the counter like he wants to melt through the wall. "I'm not going to hurt you. There's a virus - I know this sounds absurd, but there's a virus. It spreads around, from man to man, and it's going to kill you in just a little more than three years."

"You're crazy," Whizzer says. "You're - You're some homophobic, crazy-"

"Whiz, please listen." Marvin's close to him now, close enough to touch. He reaches out,  _willing_ Whizzer to understand.

"Get away from me!"

"I'm not going until-" Marvin's hand reaches Whizzer's arm, and Whizzer lets out a strangled yell. There's a flash of silver. Marvin falls to the ground, holding onto the long slash across his gut.

"Shit. Shit!" Marvin looks up at Whizzer uncomprehendingly. His lover is holding a bloody kitchen knife. He looks down at the floor. Unless he's very much mistaken, his intestines aren't supposed to be lying on the cheap linoleum.

"Whizzer... why..." Whizzer has a hand over his mouth. He looks like he's about to throw up.

"God. God god god..." Marvin collapses completely, and the scene turns to black.


	2. Chapter 2

When he comes to, he's lying on a hard, sticky floor. Music and lights pound through his head and his eyelids, and he can smell the sweat and alcohol and sex of the club.

Oh, God, again?

"Hey! Hey, are you alright?" He opens his eyes.

It's Whizzer. Of course it's Whizzer. Hadn't this all happened just an hour ago? Hadn't he just been bleeding out on Whizzer's kitchen floor? Marvin tries to sit up, but his head starts spinning and Whizzer has to grab his arm to keep him from falling over.

"Jesus," Marvin says.

"You'll be alright. Just take it easy. You hit your head pretty hard on the way down." Whizzer looks concerned. Whizzer looks concerned for him.

It hits Marvin like a freight train. He hasn't messed things up yet, not here. He and Whizzer can start afresh, with none of their baggage. He and Whizzer don't have to break up. He can make it so that Whizzer avoids the virus altogether.

This is his chance for a perfect life, and Marvin will be damned if he wastes it.

"Jesus," he says again, "must've been one hell of a fall. Can I buy you a drink?"

"What?" Whizzer says.

"A drink. As a thank you."

"You really don't have to do that."

"I know, but I want to."

"Should you even be drinking with a concussion?"

"I'll just have a water. I think I overheated. What do you want?"

"Whatever whiskey they've got on their top shelf," Whizzer says. There's a firmness in his voice, like he's daring Marvin to refuse.

"Whatever you like," Marvin says. He holds out his hand. "I'm Marvin, by the way." Whizzer takes it and pulls him to his feet.

"Whizzer," he says. He glances down at the hand he's holding. "I see you're married."

"I won't be for long."

"If that's supposed to be a pickup line, it's shit," Whizzer says. Marvin laughs.

"I didn't mean it as a pickup line," he says, "but it can be if you want it to be." Whizzer leads him over to the bar, and Marvin orders the drinks, not even blinking at the price of the whiskey.

"You're not what I expected," Whizzer says, sipping his drink.

"What did you expect?"

"Hopeless closet case." Marvin smiles over the rim of his glass. Not so long ago, Whizzer would have had him pegged perfectly.

"No one could be a hopeless closet case with a man like you around."

"So you think I'm pretty?"

"I think you're fishing."

"You really are shit at this flirting thing, aren't you?"

"Only when I'm around such handsome men."

"See, that's how you flirt. You're learning."

"Want to teach me more?" Whizzer cocks his head, mock-questioning.

"What exactly are you proposing, darling?" Marvin grins and says the one thing he knows will throw Whizzer-of-three-years-ago off.

"I was thinking I would suck you off."

* * *

He knows that Trina's going to be pissed. Marvin had called her saying he was staying late at the office, and since this was so early in his affair she had no reason to disbelieve him. Therefore, coming home at five in the morning would be doubly painful.

He regrets hurting Trina. She didn't deserve to be manipulated and have the bulk of her adult life wasted on him. At least this time things would be better. At least this time he would man up instead of stringing her along. Still, it's nerve wracking to see her standing there, arms crossed, looking pissed off and tired from a long night waiting up for him.

"Trina," he says.

"Where were you?" He remembers her words. The first time around, he hadn't noticed the pain and vulnerability in her eyes.

"Trina, I have something to confess," he says. Trina works her jaw, visibly sterling herself, and Marvin clears his throat. "I'm gay."

"What?"

"I'm gay." There's a long, awkward silence. "I hope-"

"Hope what, Marvin? You-" She points at him, finger shaking. "You - We've been married for eleven goddamn years. Why now?"

"Because I've fallen in love."

"Love," she spits. "You claimed to love me once."

"I know. I'm sorry." There's very little he can say to make it easier. "I do love you, really. Like - Like a friend, the best friend I've ever had, but I can't-"

"I have tried so damn hard to keep you satisfied," Trina says.

"I know."

"And now you're telling me that it was all just a sham? You expect me to be happy with that?"

"Hit me if you need to." She stares at him. "I'm serious, Trina. I didn't expect you to be happy-"

"Jesus, you're a mess. Why the hell would I hit you?" Trina collapses into a chair.

"I'm sorry," Marvin says again, helpless. "I wish I had understood this about myself earlier."

"So do I. Christ, eleven years, Marv."

"If it's any consolation, they were miserable."

"Jesus fucking Christ."

"I should go."

"What about Jason? What am I supposed to tell your son? Sorry, sweetheart, Daddy's gone, he decided to go suck a dick!" Marvin's stomach clenches. He hadn't thought of what Jason would think of this. Before, there had been a long, slow bleed of buildup. Before, he had been so damn self-centered and dumb that he had turned his own son against him. Before, they had found a tentative middle ground, but only after so much uncertainty that Marvin doesn't know if he can bear it again.

But what will Jason think of this sudden thing? Will he be angry? Will he hate him even more than the first time around?

No. Marvin knows he has to make his choice, and he's choosing to save Whizzer. It's the same choice as he's always made, really. This time, however, he knows exactly what is at stake.

"Tell him whatever you want," he says. "Just... let him know that I will always be his father."

* * *

The apartment next door to Cordelia and Charlotte isn't free. He takes one in the same building anyways, telling himself that he'll find a way to manufacture a meeting between them. Still, it's hardly an auspicious start, especially when he remembers that Whizzer will resist any invitation to move in. Three years ago, it had been too much like monogamy for his lover, too much like an actual relationship. Three years ago, Marvin had been desperate enough to accept Whizzer's blatant non-exclusivity, but he can't do that again. That's what's going to kill his lover, after all, what's going to kill him.

Marvin moves in, ignoring the way that the rooms feel too empty without the hidden dick paintings that he'd find at a thrift sale in two years. He gets Jason on the weekends, just on the weekends, and he tries to rebuild what they had shared in the end. Jason, being ten, is uncooperative, but Marvin knows that it will all work out. He'll make it all work out. The only thing missing, besides the lesbians of course, is Whizzer, and the only way for Marvin to get his lover back is to take the plunge and call him.

"Who is this?"

"It's Marvin."

"Sorry, who?" Marvin twists the phone cord around his finger, trying to ignore how painful it is to hear Whizzer treating him like some stranger.

"Marvin. I - We had sex a couple weeks ago. I'm the one who fainted."

"Oh. You. What's up?" Marvin's mouth suddenly feels dry.

"I - I thought you might want to try again. I haven't been able to stop thinking about you."

"Well, that's very sweet," Whizzer says, and Marvin has never been happier for his ability to read his lover like a book. Whizzer is trying so hard to sound nonchalant, but Marvin can tell that the other man is flattered, flattered enough to be with Marvin again.

"I have an apartment now," Marvin says. "I - I left my wife."

"What, over little old me?"

"I couldn't go back into the closet after being with you."

"Well, I'll never argue with a man going full homo, but it seems only fair to warn you not to get your hopes up. I don't do relationships." 

"Just sex is fine." For now.

"That's the spirit. So, when do you want to schedule this booty call?"

"Um, now. Now would be good." Whizzer chuckles.

"Give me your address."

* * *

After a few more casual encounters, Marvin proposes that Whizzer move in with him. Whizzer goes through the same arguments as the first time around, but Marvin knows that Whizzer will say yes. The younger man had been in a tight spot when Marvin found him the first time, working two shitty jobs and still struggling to make rent each month. There was a reason why Whizzer had decided to seduce a rich, married man.

The first time around, Marvin had resented that. This time, he's just glad that Whizzer's circumstances are making it easy for him to keep his lover.

At first it seems almost perfect. Sure, Whizzer still sleeps around sometimes. Sure, they argue about the cooking and the cleaning and the everything really. But Marvin can bend - he can seduce Whizzer back into his bed, he can hire a maid. He's willing to do so much to make sure that it isn't like last time.

Whizzer, unfortunately, doesn't seem to want to cooperate.

"Jesus, Marv, stop being so possessive."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are," Whizzer says with a dismissive flick of his wrist that makes Marvin's blood boil. Marvin breathes deep, trying to keep his temper leashed.

"And is that a crime? We've been together for ten months-"

"Nine months."

"Ten months. And, anyways, the point is that it's almost been a year and I thought-"

"You thought what? That we'd go exclusive? You knew what you were getting into when we started this, Marvin. Don't pretend you didn't."

"I thought we had a chance at an actual relationship."

"I told you when we started that I didn't do those."

"Whizzer, we live together. We're practically married."

"Oh, so that's what I am to you? Another extension of your perfect life-"

"Whizzer..." Marvin doesn't know what else to do, so he kisses him. "All I want is you."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"It's true." Marvin kisses him again, and this time Whizzer relaxes into it, sucking lightly at Marvin's bottom lip. "I know I don't show it well enough, but I love you."

"Marvin..." And just like that, Marvin can see that Whizzer's breaking. Whizzer's going to stay. "You're an ass and stifling as hell and I don't know if I can love you, but I'll try."

* * *

They fumble their way through two years.

It isn't perfect, not really. Jason still feels miles away, preferring Trina's stability to Marvin and Whizzer and their passion. Marvin did manage to meet Cordelia and Charlotte, but the friendship they should have shared had never materialized. Still, he has Whizzer. He's _saved_ Whizzer. He needs to believe that that's enough.

And it almost is enough until it isn't.

At first Marvin doesn't notice. Or maybe he just convinces himself that he doesn't notice. But when Whizzer collapses once again, gasping for breath, Marvin can't deny what's right in front of his face.

"I'm sorry," the doctor who isn't Charlotte says. "We've been seeing these cases popping up in gay men, and I'm afraid it appears to be fatal."

Marvin can't breath. He can barely think. He has one thought and one thought only cutting through him like a winter wind.

"He already had it," he says, numb.

"Excuse me?"

"He already had it. There's no way we can survive."

Marvin walks out the doors of the hospital. Marvin walks down the stairs to the subway, eyes burning. Marvin quietly and calmly lies down on the tracks, waiting for the scene to turn to black.


	3. Chapter 3

When he comes to, he's lying on a hard, sticky floor. Music and lights pound through his head and his eyelids, and he can smell the sweat and alcohol and sex of the club.

No.

"Hey! Hey, are you alright?" He squeezes his eyes tighter, but he can't stop the levee from breaking. First a gulp, then a sob, and then he's breaking down in the middle of the room, tears streaming down his face as the music plays on. "Woah, woah. Hey, it's alright."

"I can't do this," Marvin says raggedly.  He finally opens his eyes to find Whizzer there. He looks so worried, so concerned, so goddamn perfect that Marvin wants to scream.

"What's wrong?" Whizzer asks. Marvin gives himself a moment to take his lover - no, his _ex_ -lover in, and then he looks away.

"Nothing," he says. "Nothing at all."

"Are you sure?" Whizzer touches his arm, and Marvin flinches.

"Don't," he says. "Don't touch me, just - just go. I can't do this again. I just can't." Marvin struggles to his feet and wobbles out the door of the club and back to his repressed, perfect, horrible life.

* * *

Marvin throws himself back into the closet. He ignores the nausea and self-hatred and concentrates on his work, his wife, his son. Sometimes it's almost enough to fill the void that Whizzer left inside him when he dared to die again in spite of his best effort.

For the first time in his lives, Marvin rings in 1982.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realizes that Whizzer has died again and that this time his lover died alone. Or maybe he didn't. Maybe there was another man there to take Marvin's place. It doesn't matter. He can't think of the younger man or he'll really go insane. He's already feeling insane enough.

It's all this damn distance. It feels like he isn't even living his own life, like he's watching some stranger doing his job and screwing his wife and raising his son. It's not even a might-have-been, because he _knows_ what getting back with Whizzer would have done to him. But he still can't help but feel incomplete, like everything he had to live for was left in one of his past lives. Like he has no choice but to lose everything over and over and over again.

Trina's noticed, he knows. Trina ignores Mendel's advances in favor of taking his advice and tries to fix her suddenly defective husband. And Marvin loves her, he really does. She's taken the place in his life that Charlotte and Cordelia used to reside in, the best friend who is willing to support him but also able to kick his ass. Marvin wonders how he'd never seen this side of his wife before now, the iron-clad loyalty and determination that is able to weather all Marvin's indifference. He mourns the fact that it's taken three lifetimes for him to come to this conclusion, mourns all the things that she wants and he wishes he could give her.

He mourns Whizzer. For the first time in all his lifetimes, he actually mourns Whizzer.

Trina doesn't question why he follows the progression of that damn disease so avidly. She probably assumes that it's just another part of his dysfunction, his morbidity, his fascination with death. He watches as the trend gets a name - GRID, then AIDS. He watches as it goes from a trend to a full-blown pandemic, as the beautiful boys he used to watch on the street fade away and the people he thought were safe reveal all the ways they, too, can be killed. He watches as they discover new ways to fight it and new ways it can kill. He watches as dormancy is defined.

Five years. Ten years. Maybe even fucking more. No matter which of the options the damn virus picked, Whizzer had been a dead man walking for way longer than Marvin had known him.

Jason's love is unexpected. Maybe he'd given up after his last life, but he'd been under the impression that the closeness they'd briefly shared had been a fluke. This... well, it isn't the same, sullied a little by the silence that Marvin enforces, but it's good. They can be, if not the tight-knit family Marvin always dreamed of, _a_ family at least. Maybe it's about time that Marvin learned that that's enough.

It doesn't last, of course. No sooner has he rung in the new millennium, the whole affair having a bizarre air, then reality strikes again. Trina has one heart attack, then another. She lives long enough to see her son married, but not much longer. Marvin feels more alone than he has in his entire life. If losing Whizzer had been like losing a limb, losing Trina is like losing an organ. Something essential that he couldn't even see is gone, and he's left drifting.

He needs a change.

* * *

"Jason, I have something very important to tell you," Marvin says. 

"What is it, Dad?"

"Jason, I loved your mother. She was my best friend. But I have... I have this thing. Or, rather, I don't. I never have." Jason raises an eyebrow. "I'm gay."

"Excuse me?"

"I'm gay."

"How's that even possible? You and Mom were together for, what, thirty years?"

"Thirty-two."

"Thirty-two years, and you never thought, hey, maybe I should _do_ something about the fact that I'm _fucking gay_. You know, this makes so much sense." Marvin's stomach clenches. "Yeah, you were always so distant. From Mom, from me. You acted like a father, but that's all it ever was, wasn't it? An act?"

"Jason, I love you. You're my son. But," Marvin takes a deep breath, "but I don't want to just be theoretically gay. I want to do something about it." Jason shakes his head and pinches the bridge of his nose. "I hope you can forgive me-"

"I need time, Dad," Jason says. "I just - This is a lot to process, okay? I just need time." Marvin nods.

"Alright," he says. "Time. I can do that." For once in his life, time is something he actually has in abundance.

* * *

Marvin jumps out of the closet. It's so goddamn different from 1979. There are gay book clubs and gay movie nights and gay acapella groups and gay swing dancing. There's hatred, yes, but there's so much love, more love than Marvin knew there was in the world. Instead of the private glass of whiskey he'd enjoyed in '97 when domestic partnerships were recognized, he's able to cheer along with all his fellow queers when gay marriage is passed in New York in 2011. He stands as best man for dozens of men and women that year, including the surprisingly rediscovered Charlotte. He doesn't know where Cordelia's gone, but he hopes that she's happy.

No matter how out he is, he never really expects to find another lover. That ship had sailed in 1979, when he decided to trade away too-brief happiness for a life of repressed contentment. 

But then he meets Noel.

Noel is younger than him, inappropriately so, only a few years older than his son. Noel has bleach-blonde hair and a lop-sided grin that looks a little too big for his face. Noel says he likes older men because his own father hasn't spoken to him in fifteen years, and Marvin says that if that's supposed to be a turn on then Noel is barking up the wrong tree. 

Still, in spite of all that, they're good together. It's not like having Whizzer back, but Marvin wouldn't want it to be. Noel is someone completely different, a vibrant, loving, confusing young man who Marvin has to struggle to keep up with sometimes, but he doesn't mind. He's always liked people who can challenge him, who force him to up his game, and Noel can be a bit like that. It's good.

Jason is a bit weird about it, but that's to be expected. For a few short years, Marvin's life seems to be going swell.

* * *

It starts with him feeling tired. No big deal, he's an old man. He deserves to lie around a bit, to cuddle with his lover and let the dishes pile up. He loses weight, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. Hey, maybe the calisthenics are finally paying off.

He really has to admit something is wrong, though, when he experiences stomach cramps so painful that he throws up. Multiple times. And then he dry heaves, because his life wasn't painful enough. Noel insists on taking him to the emergency room, even though Marvin says that he'll be alright for the two days it'll take for the doctor to have a slot open. Noel can be stubborn like that. Marvin expects to be told that he has the stomach flu or something, maybe get prescribed some of the good shit.

He doesn't expect the doctor to look sorrowful when he comes back with the results of his bloodwork.

Pancreatic cancer. Stage four pancreatic cancer. The doctor says that how long he has depends greatly on how well he responds to the chemo, but Marvin isn't stupid. He knows that he only has a few short years left.

There's an irony here somewhere. He wishes he wasn't too dumb to figure it out. Something about his two previous suicides, something about dormancy and prognosis, something about time. It just figures, really, that when he's so close to figuring this life thing out he has to get thrown this curveball.

The first person he tells his Noel, who had stayed by his side through that long, painful night in the emergency room. The second person he tells is his son.

"Hey, Jason," he says. "How're things hanging?"

"Why did you call me, Dad?"

"Is that any way to talk to your father?" Marvin says jokingly.

"Dad, you never call. You barely know how to turn on your phone."

"He's using my phone," Noel says.

"See? Now why did you call?" Marvin sighs.

"Jason, I've been having some weird pain in my stomach. Nothing serious, but annoying. So I came in and they did some bloodwork and... well... long story short, I have stage four pancreatic cancer." There's a long pause.

"Pancreatic cancer?" Jason says at last.

"Yep."

"Stage four?"

"Yep."

"Dad, stop being so casual about this!"

"It's not _that_ big a deal. They're going to start me on chemo next week. Everything will be alright."

"Everything will be alright? Seriously? _Jesus_ , Dad, you have _stage four_ cancer."

"So? I'll be-"

"Dad, _there is no stage five_."

"It's not as bad as all that-"

"You can't be serious. What else could it mean?"

"It just means that I've gone through three other stages." There's a long pause. "Jason?"

"Dad, you are going to die." Marvin rolls his eyes, but he can't help feeling guilty. If Jason's taking it this hard now, when he's grown and married and has a life of his own, how hard had it been to have his father die when he was ten, when he was thirteen?

"That's the human condition, kiddo."

"Jesus _fucking_ Christ."

"Jason-"

"Don't, Dad. Just don't."

"You don't even know what I was going to say."

"Yeah, I do. You would've told me that everything will be alright. _Again_. Well, newsflash, everything will _not_ be alright."

"Jason-"

"Shut up!" His son hangs up on him, and Marvin's left staring at the phone screen.

"Well," Noel says, "that went well."

* * *

Chemo sucks.

It makes him feel constantly exhausted and achy and nauseous. It makes him feel like he'll never feel alright again, which, really, he won't. He does have terminal fucking cancer, after all. He just wishes that he didn't have to depend on Noel and Jason for everything, that he could walk across the stupid hospital room by himself.

Noel is a surprise. Marvin had expected the younger man to leave - not in a bitter way, mind you. It's just that Noel has his whole life ahead of him and deserves better than to watch his lover slowly fade away. Marvin knows first-hand how that messes with your mind. So he point-blank tells Noel that he's free to go, that Marvin won't be upset if he doesn't want to deal with it. Noel calls him an idiot.

Jason's been helping out, but he feels distant. Marvin tries not to feel angry at his son. He knows how hard this has to be for him, and it's unfair to expect him to deal with it well when Marvin's first response to a loved one dying has always, apparently, been to kill himself. But he can't help but wish that he and Jason could talk, really talk, before this is all over.

He wonders what happens next. Will he go back to 1979 yet again or will his journey finally be over? Does he even want to know? Either way is painful. He has so many regrets, so many things that he would do differently if he got the chance to do things again, but at the same time... more life means more pain. He doesn't know if he's strong enough to try again.

His time comes late one night. 

Noel's gone home to sleep in a real bed and get a change of clothes. Jason volunteered to stay with him, and Marvin has never felt more loved. It isn't the tight-knit family he had lifetimes ago, but it's his lover and his son and the memory of his other loved ones. It's another life, another type of completeness. He could be happy with this. He doesn't have to have it all.

"Jason?" Marvin says softly.

"Go to bed, Dad."

"I can't sleep." Jason doesn't respond. "Get over here. That pull-out bed will ruin your back." Jason hesitates for a moment, but then he gets up and curls next to Marvin. Marvin runs one thin, liver-spotted hand through his son's thinning hair. "I love you, kid."

"Damn it, Dad." He can hear the tears in his son's voice.

"I know I don't say it enough, but I do. I love you."

"I know, Dad. I know. I'm sorry."

"Huh?"

"I'm sorry I've been such an asshole." Marvin chuckles.

"There's nothing to be sorry for."

"No, I'm being serious. I-" Jason sniffs. "I was mad, I guess. And scared. I thought that, if you never wanted to be with Mom in the first place, you might have never wanted me. It's stupid, I know, but-" Marvin puts his arms around his son, ignoring the way that the movement pulls at his epidural. 

"It's not stupid," he says.

"But-"

"It's not stupid. It's alright to be mad or sad or whatever you're feeling. It was a real dick move to hide that part of myself from you and your mother. I guess I was scared. Scared to lose your love, scared to have to figure it all out again. And then AIDS happened and-" Marvin shakes his head. "It's alright. We don't have to have the answers."

"Dad..." Jason snuggles into his arms, and it hurts. Not physically (well, a little bit physically...), but it hurts his heart in the best way. "I love you, too."

They fall asleep like that, holding onto each other, father and son. For Jason it's just one night in a long progression of others. For Marvin, the scene fades to black.


	4. Chapter 4

When he comes to, he's lying on a hard, sticky floor. Music and lights pound through his head and his eyelids, and he can smell the sweat and alcohol and sex of the club. 

Finally.

"Hey! Hey, are you alright?" Marvin can't keep a stupid, sappy grin from his face as he opens his eyes. He's missed this, missed Whizzer. No matter how long his life is or how happy he gets, he will never stop missing Whizzer. 

"Hey," he says, struggling up onto his elbows. Whizzer's hand hovers near his shoulder, and it takes all of Marvin's strength to not lean into it.

"Woah, take it easy. You hit your head pretty bad there." Whizzer helps Marvin to his feet, lithe muscles flexing beneath the tight fabric of his shirt. Marvin has never wanted to kiss someone more. His gaze must have been too much, because Whizzer's started to look a little uncomfortable. "What?"

"Nothing," Marvin says. "I just feel very lucky." Whizzer raises an eyebrow. "It's not every day that I get rescued by such a handsome man."

"Oh, you think I'm handsome, do you?" Whizzer teases.

"Yes," Marvin says seriously. Whizzer blinks. "Can I buy you a drink?" Whizzer smirks, recovering his confident demeanor.

"Why not?" he says.

* * *

Kissing Whizzer is like coming home.

Maybe Marvin has an unfair advantage. After all, he knows Whizzer's body almost better than he knows his own, knows exactly how to make the younger man melt. Maybe that familiarity is what makes Marvin able to stomach Whizzer's complete lack of monogamy this time. How could he be jealous when they fit together so perfectly? How could he be angry when this is all he's ever wanted?

Reconnecting with Whizzer is easy. Figuring out how to deal with Trina and Jason, however, is not. Marvin doesn't want it to be like any of his previous lifetimes. He doesn't want to keep lying to them, but he also doesn't want to push them away by being too abrupt or indiscreet with his revelations. It doesn't need to be perfect, but he wants a tight-knit family, damn it, or at least a version of one. Maybe he's being selfish, but he wants to be able to love them all.

The answer ends up being easier than he had ever expected.

He had been pushing Trina towards Mendel. He's no matchmaker, but he knows that they had loved each other once, and he doesn't want Trina to waste this lifetime like she had wasted the his last one. She deserves better. She deserves someone who can love her in the way she so obviously wants. At first, he hadn't thought that it was bearing fruit. She came back from the sessions a little calmer, a little more withdrawn, but without any indication of being attracted to Mendel. But after maybe a month - a month of sneaking out to screw Whizzer, a month of weekly sessions with Mendel where he does nothing but stress out about how this might go wrong again - she approaches him.

"Marvin," Trina says, "I - I have something to confess. I wouldn't say anything, but, well, Mendel suggested-"

"Yes?" She twists the fabric of her skirt in her hands, taking a deep, shuddering breath.

"I think I like your shrink." Marvin wants to laugh, but he manages to restrain himself. He has a feeling that that wouldn't be taken so well.

"Really?"

"Really," she says, staring at the floor. "I'm so sorry. I-"

"Do you love him?"

"What?" She looks him in the eye, and Marvin smiles.

"Do you love him?"

"I - I don't know. Sort of? Kind of?"

"Do you think he loves you?" Marvin knows the answer to this. Mendel has been asking too many questions about Trina for the answer to be anything else.

"I - I think he might. It's flattering, but..." Trina shakes her head. "This is ridiculous."

"No, it's not," Marvin says. "Look, Trina, there's a reason why I suggested that you go to Mendel. He may be a shit psychiatrist, but he's a surprisingly insightful man. I thought he could help us figure out a way to be in love, really in love. Instead he helped me realize that I had convinced myself that our friendship was something more." Trina looks like she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. "And I'm sorry about that, I really am. We've both wasted so much time because I'm a dumbass. But we can make things better, for ourselves and for Jason."

"You thought that I might fall for Mendel?" Trina says skeptically.

"I had a hunch. He was... well, let's just say he was  _interested_  in knowing more about you, and the more I shared the more I realized that he's the sort of person that I was always trying to be for you. Very Jewish, very middle class, very straight." Trina laughs.

"Are you saying you aren't straight?" Marvin nods, and the smile slowly slips from Trina's face. "Oh, you're being serious."

"As I said, I mistook friendship for romance. I've only really sorted out the gay thing in the last six months." It's a lie, and it kills Marvin to say it, but he can't exactly talk about all his lifetimes, about AIDS and civil partnerships and gay marriage. He can't tell her just how much the world is changing and how much he's changed. He hopes that she'll understand.

"Jesus Christ," Trina says. And then, unexpectedly, she giggles. "Jesus Christ, what are we going to tell Jason?"

"I have no idea," Marvin admits. "Maybe we should just tell him that we love him. Anything else is... well, anything else is irrelevant."

* * *

Jason's upset, which is reasonable. Trina's taking it hard, but Marvin has a feeling that everything's going to work out, at least as far as their son is concerned. Jason just needs more time - time to come to terms with the divorce, time to figure out how he feels about the mysterious figures that his mother and father have fallen for when they should have eyes only for each other. It's Marvin that suggests inviting Mendel and Whizzer out to dinner. It would be in public, on neutral ground, and they would all have an incentive not to make a scene. 

Mendel, Trina reports, is nervous but enthusiastic. Whizzer takes the invitation in stride like everything else, even if he does act like Marvin's reading things into their relationship that don't exist. Marvin just shakes his head fondly at Whizzer's inability to admit commitment. There's a song from a movie that won't come out for almost two decades that Marvin thinks fits Whizzer to a T - "I Won't Say I'm in Love." Really, who does Whizzer think he's fooling, besides himself of course?

Between Jason's surliness and the way that Trina and Mendel are able to be openly in love when Whizzer and Marvin just aren't, the meal is predictably awkward. Still, Marvin can sense the potential there, the way that the overwhelming distance between them is growing smaller by the minute. When Whizzer and Jason start talking baseball incomprehensibly, he can't keep a sappy grin from his face.

"Thank you for tonight," he says to Whizzer later, when they're back at the apartment that Whizzer claims is just Marvin's. 

"It wasn't a problem," Whizzer says. "I just hope that you don't expect me to act like those two lovebirds."

"I wish," Marvin says. "I'm just glad that you and Jason seem to get along." Whizzer's smirk softens slightly.

"He seems like a good kid," he says. 

"He is," Marvin says. "This whole thing's been hard on him, and I haven't always been the best father, but he's figuring it out."

"Yeah." Whizzer starts undoing the buttons of his shirt, and Marvin feels his heart flutter. Judging by the way Whizzer rolls his eyes, he probably looks like an absolute sap. "I just hope you realize that this changes nothing. You're just a convenient screw."

"I know," Marvin says. He kisses Whizzer, deep and slow and sweet. "I do love you, though." Whizzer tenses, and Marvin feels his stomach clench. 

"Marvin..." Marvin places a hand on Whizzer's chest, thumb caressing his collarbone.

"You don't have to feel the same way," he assures his lover. "I know this is purely sexual for you. But that doesn't change the way I feel."

"You're going to get your heart broken," Whizzer says. Marvin nods, wishing that Whizzer's words weren't so inevitably true.

"Maybe I will," he says. "It's worth it, though." He tries to kiss Whizzer again, but his lover sighs and pushes him away.

"Marvin, don't. You deserve-"

"Jesus Christ, don't tell me what I deserve. All I want is you."

"Marvin-"

"No. This isn't up for debate. I know what I want,  _who_  I want. It doesn't matter if you never see me as more than-"

"My sugar daddy?"

"That is the grossest thing I've ever heard and I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say it. The point," he kisses Whizzer again, and he can feel the other man softening, "the point is that it doesn't matter. I'm still going to be in love, and I'm not ashamed to get my heart broken by you."

"Marv..." Whizzer shakes his head. "Screw me. Now." Marvin laughs. It seems that Whizzer's mask is back on, but that's alright. It's a very pretty mask.

* * *

The days turn to weeks, the weeks turn to months, and Marvin still manages to not fuck it up again.

He attends Trina and Mendel's wedding, accepting the strange but flattering position of Trina's "man of honor." People talk when he forgoes dancing at the reception in favor of sitting with Whizzer, but he's fine with that. Let them think he's bitter. His family knows better. Jason grows from child to adolescent, and this time he has Whizzer to help him become the best player on his Little League team (for what that's worth). Somewhere along the line Whizzer lets his lease lapse, and Marvin smiles in triumph as his lover moves in with him again.

It isn't perfect. They still fight like only people who care immeasurably about each other can. His relationship with Trina is awkward as hell. There are days where Marvin can't help but notice how doomsday comes inexorably closer and the despair threatens to overwhelm him. But this is close, really, closer than he's ever been to a perfect life. It might be as close as he can get, really.

He's lucky. He's so damn lucky. There are so many people who will never get this close to perfection. There's only one possible thing that could make it more perfect, really, and Marvin gets even that one Saturday afternoon is late 1980.

There's some rerun of Match Game on the television, and Whizzer's drifting off in his arms. Marvin can't help but act on the urge to kiss the top of Whizzer's head, burying his nose in Whizzer's vaguely fruit-scented hair. Whizzer snuggles into his chest, grumbling sleepily, and then he says something that Marvin hears clear as day.

"Love you," he mutters. Marvin's smiling so wide that he feels like his face might split.

"I love you too, Whiz," he says.

* * *

Marvin can tell when it starts, when the virus inside Whizzer changes from HIV to full-blown AIDS. He doesn't say anything at first, knowing that there's nothing he can do, no good that can come from pointing out what Whizzer would see as a weakness. Instead, he moves to cover for Whizzer's sickness and exhaustion, knowing that pushing himself too hard will only make his lover's decline worse. They switch from racquetball to going to the movies, and they screw like they don't have any tomorrows.

The hospital is inevitable, of course. Marvin just counts them lucky (yes,  _lucky_ ) that this is 1981 and not 1985, that AIDS is just a mysterious illness and not a dirty, gay-related thing that requires wards and face masks and jumping through hoops to access his lover. No matter how much this hurts, it would be infinitely worse if he wasn't able to hold Whizzer through it. 

"Just go," Whizzer says late one night when Marvin's already half asleep.

"Huh?" Marvin says, struggling to get to more than half awake.

"Look, I can't - I can't even stand. You don't have to be here. You  _shouldn't_ be here."

"I think I should."

"Marvin..."

"Shut up, Whiz." Marvin shifts deeper into his lover's arms. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Marvin, I'm dying." Marvin grabs Whizzer's hand. "I dying, and I don't know -  _they_  don't know-"

"Shh, Whizzer, I know," Marvin says. He pauses, searching for the right words, wondering if he should tell Whizzer the truth or conceal it. "The doctor said it's a virus. An - an STD." Whizzer sobs, chokes, and starts coughing painfully. Marvin holds his hand like he's never letting go.

"Shit."

"The doctor said you would have gotten it five to ten years ago. It's not your fault. They didn't even know it was in the U.S. then. Even if they had, it wouldn't have been your fault."

"Marvin, you-"

"Yes," Marvin says. "I have it." Whizzer's frail arms tighten around him.

"Jesus Christ," he says. "Jason-"

"Jason's going to be fine."

"How can you say that? Marvin, this is going to kill him. He's taking just my death hard enough, he doesn't need his father-"

"Shh. There's nothing that could have been done. There's no other choices I'd want to make." He's made so many mistakes. Some lead to better places than others, but none of them let him have this.

"You don't regret it?" Whizzer says softly, running a hand through Marvin's hair.

"I'd do it again," Marvin says. He knows it's the truth. If he dies and wakes up in that club again, he'll do whatever it takes to come back here, just here, with Whizzer. If he doesn't, if he finally moves on... well, he can honestly say that his only regret is that he didn't figure out how to have Whizzer and Trina and Mendel and Jason sooner. His only regret is the wasted time.

He vows not to waste another minute.


End file.
